Robert Nielsen
1922-2009
Robert Nielsen, journalist and freelance writer, died July 10, 2009 at
the Upper River Valley Hospital in Waterville, New Brunswick.
He was born on June 24, 1922 at Plaster Rock to danish immigrants Hans and Camilla Nielsen. He excelled in school there, leading New Brunswick in high school entrance examinations in 1936 and winning a Lord Beaverbrook scholarship to the University of New Brunswick in 1940.
He left UNB in 1943 to join the Canadian Press in Toronto, where he received basic training in editing and writing for newspapers. In 1945, he began a 33-year career with the Toronto Star during which he was successively a general reporter, Parliamentary correspondent, chief editorial writer, editorial page editor, foreign correspondent based in London and Washington, acting editor-in-chief and editorial page columnist. He traveled widely; his foreign assignments included South Africa's racial conflict, the erection of the Berlin Wall in 1961, Sweden's welfare state,Israel's in-gathering of Jews and refuges influx to Hong Kong from Communist China.
A tour of the Soviet Union in 1962, as one of an invited party of Canadian newspapermen, had the opposite effect on Nielsen from that intended by his host. He wrote the the world's first Communist state hadn't solved any special problems, only suppressed them, and predicted that if it ever became an open society "there will be a million questions (all officially settled now) to be unraveled and restitched in public." He became an advocate of Western military strength and unity behind American leadership to resist Communist expansion, and rejoice over the collapse of the Soviet empire in 1989-90-91.
Nielsen was chosen Nieman Fellow for Canada at Harvard University in 1952-53, and won a National newspaper Award for enterprise reporting in 1974. Beland Honderich, when publisher of the Toronto Star, rated him "one of the finest newspaper men I have ever worked with".
While on vacation in New Brunswick in 1965, Nielsen learned that a ratepayers' meeting had voted to expel all 45 Indian children from the Perth-Andover school--for no more substantial reason than their race. His reports to the Toronto Star led to national publicity and a second , much larger meeting of rate-payers who voted by a big majority to readmit the Indian children. Nielsen regarded his sparking this victory over racial segregation as a best achievement of his entire newspaper career.
He returned to his home province in 1978 with his wife, the former Elizabeth Ogilvy, to live on her family property at Kilburn. Comprising a large Victorian house on spacious grounds, frontage on the Saint John River with a small dock, and a 200-acre woodlot, it served as a summer vacation resort for their children and Grandchildren. After his wife's death in 1998, he married Wilhelmine Estabrook and moved to her home at Wilmot, NB.
Nielsen enjoyed a long and active semi-retirement as a hobby forester, freelance writer and student. He operated the woodlot for sustained yield by employing an expert cutter, Burton Broad of Moose Mountain, with guidance from a management plan drawn up by the Carleton-Victoria Wood Products Marketing Board. He was the board's delegate to the New Brunswick Federation of Woodlot Owners, of which he was president in 1983-84. He was also a producer member of the NB Forest products Commission for six years.
He edited two issues of The Tobiquer, a local history magazine, for which he wrote a biographical story of Donald Fraser Jr., the remarkable "Boss of Plaster Rock" during the early decades of this century. He wrote political columns for Influence magazine during its three-year existence, book reviews for Thomson Newspaper and others, and editorial reviews as well as original articles for the Canadian Reader's Digest.
From 1993 to 1996 he was a weekly columnist with the New Brunswick Telegraph Journal. His columns written from a socially and politically conservative standpoint, aroused considerable controversy.
In the late 1980's Nielsen became a part-time student at the University of Maine at Presque Isle, majoring in English and political science, and graduated with distinction in 1990 as a Bachelor of Liberal Studies. He found the teaching competent at UMPI, but performance standards much lower than at UNB in the 1940's. He inferred that mass higher education is a contradiction in terms: "You can have it mass or high, but not both".
Found medically unfit for military service in World War II, he was made an honorary member of the Royal Canadian Legion after writing a history of Perth-Andover Branch 36. He was grateful to be associated with men who risked their lives for Canada and for freedom; and he enjoyed his favorite hobby, playing bridge, many times at the Legion Hall.
The more Nielsen saw of other countries, the more he appreciated Canada. He considered it a great stroke of luck that his parents settled here: First, because friendly and tolerant Canadians accepted newcomers on their merits and gave them a fair chance to succeed. Second, he said, because it gave him the English language as a birthright, with a free pass into the treasure house of English literature. He was an avid reader of many of its genres from the comedies of P.G. Wodehouse to the tragedies of Shakespeare. He adored Jane Austen, whose novels he read and re-read until (he claimed) favorite characters became regular, ever-welcome inhabitants of his mind.
Nielsen maintained a keen interest in world affairs, on which he kept informed by subscribing to specialist periodicals from both Europe and the United States. He traveled with Mrs. Nielsen to Elderhostel educational programs, and they took two long voyages by freighter, one on a Polish ship from Hamburg, Germany to Yokohama, Japan, another from Philadelphia to Buenos Aires, Argentina on a German merchantman.
Travel quickened his sympathies for victims of oppression and poverty in lands much less fortunate than Canada. He contributed regularly to Amnesty International to rescue "prisoners of conscience" under tyrannical regimes, chaired a committee that brought a family of Vietnamese "boat people" to Canada, and subsidized five school-aged children for several years in Korea, Honduras and Thailand.
He is survived by his wife Wilhelmine Estabrook; son Sigurd Nielsen (Jane) of Midlothian, VA; his daughter Christina Nielsen (Joe Bell) of Fielding, NB; one brother Richard Nielsen (Donna) of Toronto, ON; seven grandchildren and four great grandchildren. He was predeceased by his first wife Elizabeth Nielsen (Ogilvy); his son Peter Nielsen; and his daughter Lanie Douglas.
In accordance with Robert's wishes, there will be no visitation. A memorial service will be held later in August. Interment will be in the Kilburn Community Cemetery.
Arrangements by Brunswick Funeral Home, Perth-Andover.
He was born on June 24, 1922 at Plaster Rock to danish immigrants Hans and Camilla Nielsen. He excelled in school there, leading New Brunswick in high school entrance examinations in 1936 and winning a Lord Beaverbrook scholarship to the University of New Brunswick in 1940.
He left UNB in 1943 to join the Canadian Press in Toronto, where he received basic training in editing and writing for newspapers. In 1945, he began a 33-year career with the Toronto Star during which he was successively a general reporter, Parliamentary correspondent, chief editorial writer, editorial page editor, foreign correspondent based in London and Washington, acting editor-in-chief and editorial page columnist. He traveled widely; his foreign assignments included South Africa's racial conflict, the erection of the Berlin Wall in 1961, Sweden's welfare state,Israel's in-gathering of Jews and refuges influx to Hong Kong from Communist China.
A tour of the Soviet Union in 1962, as one of an invited party of Canadian newspapermen, had the opposite effect on Nielsen from that intended by his host. He wrote the the world's first Communist state hadn't solved any special problems, only suppressed them, and predicted that if it ever became an open society "there will be a million questions (all officially settled now) to be unraveled and restitched in public." He became an advocate of Western military strength and unity behind American leadership to resist Communist expansion, and rejoice over the collapse of the Soviet empire in 1989-90-91.
Nielsen was chosen Nieman Fellow for Canada at Harvard University in 1952-53, and won a National newspaper Award for enterprise reporting in 1974. Beland Honderich, when publisher of the Toronto Star, rated him "one of the finest newspaper men I have ever worked with".
While on vacation in New Brunswick in 1965, Nielsen learned that a ratepayers' meeting had voted to expel all 45 Indian children from the Perth-Andover school--for no more substantial reason than their race. His reports to the Toronto Star led to national publicity and a second , much larger meeting of rate-payers who voted by a big majority to readmit the Indian children. Nielsen regarded his sparking this victory over racial segregation as a best achievement of his entire newspaper career.
He returned to his home province in 1978 with his wife, the former Elizabeth Ogilvy, to live on her family property at Kilburn. Comprising a large Victorian house on spacious grounds, frontage on the Saint John River with a small dock, and a 200-acre woodlot, it served as a summer vacation resort for their children and Grandchildren. After his wife's death in 1998, he married Wilhelmine Estabrook and moved to her home at Wilmot, NB.
Nielsen enjoyed a long and active semi-retirement as a hobby forester, freelance writer and student. He operated the woodlot for sustained yield by employing an expert cutter, Burton Broad of Moose Mountain, with guidance from a management plan drawn up by the Carleton-Victoria Wood Products Marketing Board. He was the board's delegate to the New Brunswick Federation of Woodlot Owners, of which he was president in 1983-84. He was also a producer member of the NB Forest products Commission for six years.
He edited two issues of The Tobiquer, a local history magazine, for which he wrote a biographical story of Donald Fraser Jr., the remarkable "Boss of Plaster Rock" during the early decades of this century. He wrote political columns for Influence magazine during its three-year existence, book reviews for Thomson Newspaper and others, and editorial reviews as well as original articles for the Canadian Reader's Digest.
From 1993 to 1996 he was a weekly columnist with the New Brunswick Telegraph Journal. His columns written from a socially and politically conservative standpoint, aroused considerable controversy.
In the late 1980's Nielsen became a part-time student at the University of Maine at Presque Isle, majoring in English and political science, and graduated with distinction in 1990 as a Bachelor of Liberal Studies. He found the teaching competent at UMPI, but performance standards much lower than at UNB in the 1940's. He inferred that mass higher education is a contradiction in terms: "You can have it mass or high, but not both".
Found medically unfit for military service in World War II, he was made an honorary member of the Royal Canadian Legion after writing a history of Perth-Andover Branch 36. He was grateful to be associated with men who risked their lives for Canada and for freedom; and he enjoyed his favorite hobby, playing bridge, many times at the Legion Hall.
The more Nielsen saw of other countries, the more he appreciated Canada. He considered it a great stroke of luck that his parents settled here: First, because friendly and tolerant Canadians accepted newcomers on their merits and gave them a fair chance to succeed. Second, he said, because it gave him the English language as a birthright, with a free pass into the treasure house of English literature. He was an avid reader of many of its genres from the comedies of P.G. Wodehouse to the tragedies of Shakespeare. He adored Jane Austen, whose novels he read and re-read until (he claimed) favorite characters became regular, ever-welcome inhabitants of his mind.
Nielsen maintained a keen interest in world affairs, on which he kept informed by subscribing to specialist periodicals from both Europe and the United States. He traveled with Mrs. Nielsen to Elderhostel educational programs, and they took two long voyages by freighter, one on a Polish ship from Hamburg, Germany to Yokohama, Japan, another from Philadelphia to Buenos Aires, Argentina on a German merchantman.
Travel quickened his sympathies for victims of oppression and poverty in lands much less fortunate than Canada. He contributed regularly to Amnesty International to rescue "prisoners of conscience" under tyrannical regimes, chaired a committee that brought a family of Vietnamese "boat people" to Canada, and subsidized five school-aged children for several years in Korea, Honduras and Thailand.
He is survived by his wife Wilhelmine Estabrook; son Sigurd Nielsen (Jane) of Midlothian, VA; his daughter Christina Nielsen (Joe Bell) of Fielding, NB; one brother Richard Nielsen (Donna) of Toronto, ON; seven grandchildren and four great grandchildren. He was predeceased by his first wife Elizabeth Nielsen (Ogilvy); his son Peter Nielsen; and his daughter Lanie Douglas.
In accordance with Robert's wishes, there will be no visitation. A memorial service will be held later in August. Interment will be in the Kilburn Community Cemetery.
Arrangements by Brunswick Funeral Home, Perth-Andover.
Service Date
Tuesday, July 14, 2009